{
  "id": "a_oo5eylwq",
  "oid": 165174,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165175,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "The best possible world can still contain evil",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH05.P001",
      "oid": 100,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH05.P001",
      "exact": "the optimist thought this world as good as it could be, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be",
      "start": 365,
      "end": 473,
      "prefix": "ary verbal explanation was that ",
      "suffix": ". Both these statements being ob",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05.P001#char=365,473"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "The historical philosophical formulas are more discriminating than the cartoon definitions Chesterton proceeds to dismiss. Leibniz explicitly concedes the existence of evil and the possibility of a world without it. His claim concerns the comparative perfection of complete possible worlds: an imperfection in one part might contribute to a better whole. Consequently, calling this the best possible world does not mean calling every event good. See the opening objection and reply in the *Theodicy*'s appended [*Abridgement of the Argument*, I](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21l-017-the-art-of-the-probable-literature-and-probability-spring-2008/d5105f669062d19792e64ecc09a1456e_leibniz_theodicy.pdf), PDF p. 2. The work first appeared in 1710; the witness here is a 2008 teaching adaptation by A. C. Kibel of G. M. Duncan's 1890 English translation, rather than an unmodified early edition.\n\nSchopenhauer actually advances the opposite superlative. In [*The World as Will and Idea*, chapter XLVI, pp. 395–397](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40868/40868-h/40868-h.html), he defines possibility by a world's capacity to continue existing and argues that ours survives so precariously that a worse arrangement could not persist. The claim does not require every constituent thing to be bad. This witness is Haldane and Kemp's English translation, vol. III, sixth edition (1909), published after *Orthodoxy*. It transmits the German supplementary volume first published in 1844 and revised in 1859, as the [Cambridge edition's description](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/schopenhauer-the-world-as-will-and-representation/5E3FC779CA0B0BCBBE5C0C51B1964E97) records; the 1909 witness itself establishes no influence on Chesterton.\n\nChesterton names neither philosopher here. His target is the popular use of their opposed labels, framed through remembered boyhood bewilderment, rather than a documented exposition of either system. Nevertheless, the distinction matters: his transition from a claim about the world's overall comparative quality to a claim about everything in it is not compulsory. The chapter's stronger challenge comes afterward, when he asks whether allegiance and reform require a relationship to the world deeper than any assessment of its merits.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21l-017-the-art-of-the-probable-literature-and-probability-spring-2008/d5105f669062d19792e64ecc09a1456e_leibniz_theodicy.pdf",
      "title": "Leibniz, Theodicy: Abridgement of the Argument; Duncan translation adapted by A. C. Kibel",
      "locator": "PDF p. 2, section I; translator/adaptation credit immediately above",
      "exact": null
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40868/40868-h/40868-h.html",
      "title": "Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Haldane and Kemp, vol. III, sixth edition, 1909",
      "locator": "Title page; chapter XLVI, printed pp. 395–397, paragraph beginning 'But indeed to the palpably sophistical proofs'",
      "exact": null
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/schopenhauer-the-world-as-will-and-representation/5E3FC779CA0B0BCBBE5C0C51B1964E97",
      "title": "Cambridge edition, The World as Will and Representation, volume 2",
      "locator": "Publisher description: second volume added 1844, revised 1859",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21l-017-the-art-of-the-probable-literature-and-probability-spring-2008/d5105f669062d19792e64ecc09a1456e_leibniz_theodicy.pdf",
      "title": "*Abridgement of the Argument*, I"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40868/40868-h/40868-h.html",
      "title": "*The World as Will and Idea*, chapter XLVI, pp. 395–397"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/schopenhauer-the-world-as-will-and-representation/5E3FC779CA0B0BCBBE5C0C51B1964E97",
      "title": "Cambridge edition's description"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "No direct borrowing from Leibniz or Schopenhauer is established for this paragraph.",
    "The inspected Leibniz witness is explicitly adapted and emended; the annotation relies on its conceptual content, not its wording as an exact quotation of the original French."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-05-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P001",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since",
        "question": "Do the best-world and worst-world formulas imply that everything individually is good or bad in Leibniz and Schopenhauer?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Quotations and attributions",
        "question": "Can the little girl's definition be traced independently of Chesterton?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:5544c61829c87624742481c24653aeedcbdd2125c56257924553a1b485e9ae65",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:31Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_oo5eylwq",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_oo5eylwq/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}